Five Questions with Nate Schmidt

NHL.com's Q&A feature called "Five Questions With …" will run every Tuesday throughout the 2017-18 regular season. We talk to key figures in the game and ask them questions to gain insight into their lives, careers and the latest news.
The latest edition features Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Nate Schmidt.

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Defenseman Nate Schmidt runs into Vegas Golden Knights fans everywhere he goes. The other day, one told him, "There's never going to be anything like that first love."
The Golden Knights are Las Vegas' first major-league professional sports team. But they have been easy to love for many other firsts.
They won their first two games on the road in dramatic fashion. They won their first game at home after an emotional ceremony in the wake of a mass shooting on the Las Vegas Strip on Oct. 1, becoming the first NHL expansion team to start 3-0-0. That was just the first week.
They're 26-9-2, and their 54 points put them first in the Western Conference. They're 16-2-1 at T-Mobile Arena, first in the League at home. They're on seven-game winning and 12-game point streaks (11-0-1), among the many things they have been the first NHL team to do in an inaugural season.
They play the Nashville Predators at T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday (10 p.m. ET; ATTSN-RM, FS-TN, NHL.TV). The Predators made the Stanley Cup Final last season and are third in the West, but the Golden Knights won 4-3 in a shootout at Bridgestone Arena on Dec. 8 and are 6-0-0 against the 2017 conference finalists.
They defeated the only team higher in the NHL standings, the Tampa Bay Lightning, 4-3 at T-Mobile Arena on Dec. 19.
Here are Five Questions with … Nate Schmidt:

This is what you predicted, right?

"[Laughs] I mean, I'm telling you, I don't know if we would have believed it, either. [Laughs] We had a great group of guys that thought individually they could expand their roles on the team with a new opportunity. But we didn't think it was going to be to this extent where our team has jelled really quickly. It's kind of taken on the identity of our city after what happened here on the 1st of October, and I thought we just, from the very get-go, from the Expansion Draft, guys have had a little bit of a chip on their shoulder just to make sure that they wanted to prove everybody wrong that they weren't expendable or disposable."

How has the lack of hierarchy in the locker room shaped the team?

"We're going to need everybody to win games. We're not going to out-skill other teams. We're not going to be able to go out there and tic-tac-toe everybody. We're going to have to work hard. That's just kind of been our M.O. from the very beginning. And that comes from [Gerard Gallant] as well, our head coach. He holds everybody very accountable and holds guys to the same standard no matter who you are. That's I think been a big part of it as well, because then the guys in the locker room, it's the same exact thing. Guys hold each other to a high standard as well. It's just kind of a group that's just is one big amoeba [laughs] that's kind of moving forward, right? There's no one guy leading the charge."

There are lots of theories about your home record, like opponents contracting the "Vegas Flu." What are yours, other than that you have a good team?

"I think the biggest thing is just [opponents] getting thrown off their routines, whether it's for an hour and a half at a show or a little bit longer with dinner or the flashing lights, the dry air. I mean, I don't know. It could be a whole heap of a lot of things. I think we play so hard at home. Our atmosphere's been incredible, and so I think that's one of the biggest parts. Our guys play so hard at home for our fans, for our city, because it's been an awesome time so far."

What about playing in Las Vegas has surprised you?

"I'd only visited here. The only thing you could think about was the Strip. 'Oh, that's such a great place.' Two or three days, you can't do too much more of it. But then you get outside of it and start to see the fabric of the community and where we live out in Summerlin, and it's fantastic. That's probably the biggest difference, the thing that I didn't really realize until you actually get here and live here for an extended period of time. You have the fun and the excitement of the Strip, but it's such a small, tight-knit community. It's just been so welcoming to us from the very beginning. It's been something that's been very special to us, and our guys have felt at home ever since we got here, and I think that's been one of the reasons why we've been so comfortable in this city and so comfortable playing here."

What do the players think about the Stanley Cup Playoffs?

"The beauty of our team is that every game means more to at least one guy that had been picked off those teams or traded from those teams. Each game we get so excited about what we're going to do and how we're going to get one for the guy that came from there. We just played [the Los Angeles Kings] in L.A. for the first time. For my [defense] partner Brayden McNabb, it's like, I really wanted to have a great game for him and have a chance to show up his former team, right? That's kind of been our mentality, and the way we've been compiling wins, our guys have almost taken on the [attitude of], 'Hey, we'll see it when we see it, we'll get there when we get there and we're in no rush, because we're having an absolute blast while we're doing it so far.'"